There have been many technological advances in recent years which have potential applications in the media industry. For example, digital image capture technologies have been, and are continuing to be, developed. It is desirable for the media industry to offer such new and innovative technologies which result in many new or improved applications.
One such developing area is that of interactive video. Interactive video generally allows a user to control the displayed area of a video; for example, the user may be able to zoom into an image. An example of interactive video is immersive video, which combines interactive panoramic photography with digital video.
Interactive panoramic photography combines photographic hardware with specific computer software to allow virtual display of a real environment captured previously as a photograph.
Immersive video has begun to address the technical problems associated with switching from static (360°) panoramic images to panoramic video.
Current technology enables a video sequence in immersive 3D mode to be viewed using a computer with which the user interacts via a peripheral such as a mouse, virtual head set, joystick or immersive panoramic screen or other input device.
The techniques used also make it possible to replace several standard cameras with a single immersive camera. This may be done by capturing ultra-wide field-of-view images. This is desirable for the user of the system, who can thus use the pan, tilt and zoom functions virtually, and can parameterise several virtual cameras. This leads to a more realistic experience for the user who can become more involved in the virtual environment, and leads to a variety of applications.
Ultra-wide field-of-view images can be captured using, for example, fish eye lenses. A fish eye lens has a wide-angle field-of-view. Many variants exist. A typical fish eye lens can form an image from a 180-degree hemisphere full circle. The images are typically captured, transported and viewed in High Definition (HD) resolution.
HD resolution video is characterised by its wide format (generally 16:9 aspect ratio) and its high image definition (1920×1080 pixels is a usual frame size, as compared with standard video definition (SD) formats where 720×576 pixel size is a usual frame size).
It is desirable to capture ultra-wide field-of-view images in very high definition (XHD) format. This can be achieved if the lens (for example a fisheye lens) is mounted on an appropriate camera. Very high definition (XHD) format achieves pictures of larger size than high definition (HD) format video. It is noted here, for the avoidance of doubt, that very high definition encompasses any definition higher than HD. The XHD formats are desirable, and sometimes necessary, in many video applications to allow the user to zoom correctly. For example, emerging cameras (using fish-eye lenses to take the pictures) are beginning to work beyond one megapixel and up to eight megapixels and beyond. Using XHD video greatly increases zoom capacity compared to HD video, allowing users to see well defined images even at high zoom, thereby greatly increasing the zoom range of emerging cameras and hence, in many applications, their effectiveness.
At present, the compression, transportation and storage of XHD resolution video obtained, for example, from cameras with fish eye lenses is performed by using MPEG compression which creates huge file sizes and bandwidth creating transportation and storage problems. Therefore, powerful dedicated processors and very-high-speed networks are required to enable the data to be compressed, transported and stored quickly enough to be available in real time for applications. These processors and networks are, at present, not widely available nor financially viable. Thus, fish eye XHD video cannot be offered to a wide market until these processors and networks are improved, become widely available and financially viable. Until then many applications cannot be realised. The present invention aims to address this problem generally.